RamView: Week 14 – Part 9

* Upon further review: You were expecting a competently-officiated game from Jeff Triplette’s crew? Think again! Poor refereeing was central to some of today’s key plays. Null was exactly right to protest his first INT. Vanden Bosch clobbered Jackson to the ground while the ball was in the air; obvious, blatant, textbook, IGNORED, pass interference. Hey, this was a Super Bowl XXXIV rematch, not XXXVI. The Titans got away with holding in the running game all day. Scott was held at the outset of Johnson’s 39-yard TD. Johnson’s third TD came courtesy of his TE grabbing Dahl and slamming him to the ground. Collins eluded pressure on a later TD pass to Crumpler because Little was slightly held and Adeyanju was brutally held. The one call they got right was not to call Ryan for a late hit on Johnson on the Titan sideline in the 4th. Ryan released contact before they got out of bounds; Johnson fell because he pushed off of Ryan. Getting that call right was such a pleasant surprise I’ll let Triplette skate by with a D.

* Cheers: Fox doesn’t exactly give Trent Green much chance to develop chemistry with a play-by-play announcer; he worked with Chris Rose this week. Green had good observations about the patience in Johnson’s running style and about Null’s (many) mistakes, though calling the Spagnuolo-Incognito sideline meeting a “confrontation” made much more of it than it was. I wonder how far the Rams have to be behind before Green quits claiming “they’re still in it”, though. 26-0? 33-0? 1,000,006-0? Trent showed restraint questioning officials’ calls and questioning Fisher’s late-game tactics. He should probably do that as a first-year commentator. If his directors let him cut loose more next year, it’ll a big step for him toward becoming one of the more-highly-regarded commentators.